


it's a promise

by gazing



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Dangan Ronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Fluff, M/M, Pre-Relationship, fulfilling my headcanon that taka is a soft baby who gay panics a lot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-07-28 21:48:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20071120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gazing/pseuds/gazing
Summary: Mondo smiles warmly.“Thanks, man.” He says, “Never been defended like that before. Didn’t realise you thought so highly of me.”





	it's a promise

**Author's Note:**

> hi hi ^^ this is my first danganronpa fic 
> 
> I'm sooo fond of these two and ugh I just wanted to write something abt them being soft in a normal high school idk

A sound from the door makes Mondo stir from his sleep only ten minutes into detention. One moment, he’s dozing on the school desk, the side of his head pressed against the wood. There’s a small, red indent on the side of his cheek from resting there. The next moment, the door to the classroom is ceremoniously being thrown open, and Mondo jumps awake, startled from a soft, fragmented dream that he’s already forgotten.

He rubs his eyes, and through his sleepy, hazed vision, he sees none other than Kiyotaka Ishimaru walking into the room with heavy footsteps and his chin in the air. There’s an angry flush in his cheeks..

Mondo thinks Kiyotaka is just here to oversee detention because the teacher hasn’t turned up - it wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened, after all. Mondo has spent hours in this room after school: he likes to stay back just as an excuse not to go home and feel the hard tension in every room. The loneliness there that he can’t quite shake off is eased a little by the classroom and the view from the window.

So Kiyotaka likes to oversee detention when the teacher doesn’t turn up, and Mondo likes to turn up at detention even when no one else does, and that usually means that Mondo stares aimlessly out of the window and doesn’t write his lines while Kiyotaka looks at him disapprovingly and lectures him on the ‘upmost importance of following the rules’.

( _ But one moment sticks out to Mondo, more important than the rest. On a summer afternoon, it had been so hot in detention that Mondo had peeled off his jacket, leaving only his tanktop on show, which was sticking to him in the heat. He’d felt someone watching him after a while and, thinking it would just be Kiyotaka with his usual critical gaze, he’d looked up. _

_ But Kiyotaka had been staring at him with wide eyes, his expression bewildered and vulnerable, like a deer in the headlights. There had been a pink tint to his cheeks and Mondo had wondered if it was just from the sun.  _

_ When Kiyotaka had coughed and looked away, his confidence slipping from his shoulders like it was never real at all, Mondo had felt a smug pride in his chest at making someone so uptight fall apart so easily.) _

What surprises Mondo, then, is Kiyotaka slipping into a chair beside Mondo, his eyebrows narrowed in fury, instead of standing at the front of the classroom.

“The fuck?” Mondo asks.

“Yes, yes, I am in detention.” Kiyotaka says, angrily, “I did not expect this situation to ever happen to me, either.”

Mondo stares at him for a moment. The ultimate moral compass, the perfect honour student, sitting here in detention beside a dead beat gang leader. 

“You should close your mouth, Mondo,” Kiyotaka says sharply, “Or you will catch flies.”

Mondo bursts into laughter, tears pricking at the edges of his eyes. 

“Are you finished making fun of me?” Kiyotaka asks, but a smile tugs at the corner of his mouth.

“Nah, not yet.” Mondo says, his laughter still loud in his throat, “This ain’t real. Why are  _ you  _ in detention?”

“Because I broke the rules, of course.” Kiyotaka says. “It’s shocking, I know. I feel terrible.”

Kiyotaka has turned his face away, and is fumbling with his fingers. Curious, Mondo leans forward across his desk.

“C’mon, tell me. There’s nothing I ain’t heard before.”

“Well, I-” Kiyotaka mumbles, “I don’t think I-”

Seeing  _ Kiyotaka Ishimaru  _ stumbling over his words, nervous and unsure, is oddly endearing. Kiyotaka is biting at his lip thoughtfully, his head bowed with guilt, and Mondo thinks that maybe this kid, with his loud voice and his tense, hard shoulders, is so much more interesting than he originally thought.

Mondo, trying to shrug his feelings from his shoulders, grins widely.

“Don’t keep me waiting, man,” He says, 

“Well, you see, the thing is, it seems like, I-”

“Spit it out!”

“I was defending you!” Kiyotaka yells, and then he groans and slams his head off the table. “Byakuya was being impolite about you, and I could not just sit there and listen, so I may have reacted a little strongly. My words towards him were… unpleasant. Now here I am.”

“You… defended me?”

Mondo’s voice must’ve been more vulnerable than he thought, because Kiyotaka looks up at him and his face softens. Then he smiles gently, and Mondo feels shaken and scared, somehow so different to his usual facade.

“Well, of course.” Kiyotaka says, “It was morally correct. I… do not regret it.”

Mondo smiles warmly.

“Thanks, man.” He says, “Never been defended like that before. Didn’t realise you thought so highly of me.”

“Well, we learn something new every day.” Kiyotaka says, “You might think I disapprove of you because I always nag you, but that’s not it. My job as ultimate moral compass is only to guide people towards what’s best for them, not to change them.”

“Huh.” Mondo says. 

“Actually,” Kiyotaka continues, rambling, and Mondo thinks maybe he likes this softened Kiyotaka, who speaks quietly but still with passion, who picks at the edge of his sleeve nervously. “I rather like you as a person. I think you are kind and intelligent, and you have a lot of potential both in your studies and outside of them, if only you’d respect education. I cannot judge or criticise your lifestyle, because I don’t understand it, nor have I experienced it. I can only guide you in the right direction, and hope you do your best."

And Mondo thinks Kiyotaka is being truthful, because there’s a sincerity in his face, a kindness in the way he smiles cautiously. Mondo is so used to being judged and criticized and hurt by others - this softness he’s met with is so unfamiliar to him, so different from the cold eyes and masculinity of his gang, that Mondo wants to go home even less now.

“So through all that bullshit,” Mondo grins, “You’re saying you always get on my nerves because you like me, eh?”

“No, that’s not-” Kiyotaka glances around the room as if looking for an escape, “I suppose that’s… one way to put it…”

“You know,” Mondo says, suddenly, “I think we all got you wrong.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like, everyone just thinks you’re a stuck up prick, but really, you’re just looking out for us.” Kiyotaka opens his mouth to speak, but Mondo cuts it off. “Nah, I think that’s cool. I dunno if anyone sees how much you really do. Thanks, man. You rock.”

“Oh.” Kiyotaka’s voice cracks. “You really think that?”

There are tears glistening in Kiyotaka’s eyes, and Mondo wonders if this is the first time in a long time that someone has been kind to him. Is Mondo the first person to see him for who he is?

“Oh, fuck, don’t cry,  _ stop- _ ” Mondo hastily continues speaking, “I mean, you know I have a gang, right? And though they respect me, I reckon they really just wanna be me, and they’re fake as fuck. There’s no loyalty, you know? Most people are like that, with secrets or incentives or whatever, and they’ll fuck you around as much as they want until they get bored. But you- you’re a real man. You’re honest. Kind, too. That takes guts.”

Kiyotaka sniffles, and Mondo grins at him.

“Let’s make a promise as men,” Mondo says, “To always be ourselves, yeah? And you better forget all the mushy shit I just said, or you die.”

“Yes,” Kiyotaka laughs through his tears, “Yes, okay. It’s a promise.”

When Kiyotaka holds out his hand, Mondo thinks that yes, this is it, this is the honesty and the hope and the home he’s been waiting for. 

They shake hands, their hands warm, and Kiyotaka squeezes his fingers gently before he pulls away. 

Rain starts to fall outside, pattering against the windows.

“Oh, it’s raining,” Kiyotaka says.

“No shit.” Mondo says fondly. “Detention’s over now, right?”

“Yes, it was over 3 minutes ago.”

“Of course you fuckin’ know that.” 

So they leave the classroom together, and Kiyotaka stops in the corridor.

“Do you, ah, want to walk together?”

He says it nervously, embarrassed, and Mondo blinks at him.

“Sorry, man. Gotta get my bike.” Mondo says.

“Oh, then I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Kiyotaka smiles, a bright, lovely thing in the dark of the corridor, and Mondo wishes he hadn’t said anything, that he’d just left his bike and walked in the rain with Kiyotaka by his side. From the corridor, to the front door of the school, to his parking spot, all Mondo thinks about is Kiyotaka’s fingers around his own.

Then he hears wet footsteps through the rain, and Mondo turns away from his motorbike to see Kiyotaka walking towards him and holding an umbrella above his head.

“You know, you really shouldn’t go home on that thing without a helmet or coat, you’ll get a very bad cold.” Kiyotaka says, primly, but he’s doing a bad job at being stern: the tips of his ears are bright red. “If you get sick, you’re much less likely to get good grades, I think. It would be more beneficial for you to walk with me.”

“You’re really something.” Mondo says, huffing out a pleased laugh, and ducking under the umbrella. 

They walk together, but Mondo notices after a while that he’s a little taller than Kiyotaka, and so Kiyotaka is having to reach up to keep the umbrella over Mondo’s head. Plus, he’s far away from Mondo, so his hair is a little wet and he’s shivering, not protected by the umbrella.

“Dumbass.” Mondo says.

He takes the umbrella, and pulls Kiyotaka against his side so it covers both of them. Kiyotaka squeaks but doesn’t move.

“Yes, um, that’s-” Kiyotaka stutters, “Thank you very much.”

Kiyotaka is warm and small and pretty with his hair a little fuzzy and damp from the rain, and his nose a little red from the cold. Mondo has the stupid urge to kiss it, and he pushes the thought down into his shoes.

When they reach Mondo’s house, Kiyotaka pauses on the doorstep, and then he reaches up and kisses Mondo’s cheek.

“Thank you for being so kind to me,” He says. “I would very much like to be- to be friends with you, if you want.”

_ What the fuck was that,  _ Mondo thinks, staring at Kiyotaka’s polished shoes. 

“Course, bro,” Mondo says, “We made a promise. We’ve got a bond now, or something.”

Kiyotaka grins and ducks his head in a pleased sort of way and Mondo thinks that maybe  _ friends  _ isn’t the right word for what he wants them to be but really, he’ll take anything he can get. He’s never had a friend he can trust, after all, and until today he’s never felt warmth like what Kiyotaka brought to him.

“Well, goodnight, Mondo” Kiyotaka says, “Rest well!”

Mondo thinks there’s something different about him now, something lighter. Kiyotaka hadn’t barked  _ rest well  _ like a command, like he usually would. He’d said it with a new shy softness that seemed to say  _ I truly hope you rest well,  _ rather than, the  _ rest well! protect your health! sleep 8 hours a night!  _ that Mondo would expect from Kiyotaka.

Kiyotaka gives the smallest smile and turns away and Mondo pulls him back by his arm.

He reaches down and presses his mouth gently to Kiyotaka’s cheek, his hands firmly on Kiyotaka’s shoulders.

“There,” He says, “Now we’re even.”

Kiyotaka stares at him, flushed and terrified and so, so happy. The breath Mondo lets out onto his cheek might be a new promise, Mondo thinks, bigger than any he’s made before.   
  



End file.
